But meanwhile another question had been raised, which brought matters into still greater confusion. A parliamentary inquiry as to the disposition of the Irish forfeited estates had revealed the fact that William had granted large shares of the same, not only in reward and compensation to deserving officers, which was just and right, but also to his discarded mistress, Elizabeth Villiers, and to his Dutch favourites, Portland and Albemarle. The King's conduct herein was the less defensible, inasmuch as the Irish government had counted upon these estates to defray the expenses, still unpaid, of the Irish war, and had thrown up its hands in despair when it found that this resource was to be withheld.[285] The House of Commons took up the question viciously, passed a sweeping and shameful bill resuming all property that had belonged to the Crown at the accession of James the Second, tacked it to a money-bill, and sent it up to the Lords. The Upper House, to save a revolution, yielded, after much protest, and passed the bill; and then none too soon William sent this most mischievous House of Commons about its business.
1701,
February 14.
It was not until early in the following year that the King met the Parliament, more distinctly even than the last a Tory Parliament, which had been elected in the autumn. Once more he was obliged to remind it that, amid the all-important questions of the English succession and the Spanish succession, provision should be made for paying the debts incurred through the war. There could be no doubt about these debts, for the petitions which had formerly dropped in by scores, now, in consequence of the interference with the Irish grants, flowed in by hundreds. The Commons had flattered themselves that they had disposed of this disagreeable business by their appointment of commissioners, but they found that, owing to their own faulty instructions, the commissioners were powerless to deal with many of the cases presented to them. The complaints of officers against the Government became almost as numerous as those of men against officers, and every day came fresh evidence of confusion of military business worse confounded by the imbecility and mismanagement of the House.[286]
Where the matter would have ended, and whether it might not have led ultimately to a dangerous military riot, it is difficult to say. All, however, was cut short by the despatch of English troops to the Low Countries, and the evident approach of war; for the prospect of employment for every disbanded soldier and reduced officer sufficed in itself to quiet a movement which might easily have become formidable. Two more sessions such as those of 1698 and 1699 might have brought about a repetition of Cromwell's famous scene with the Long Parliament.
It is, however, impossible to leave these few stormy years of peace without taking notice of the apparent helplessness of the military administration. The War Office was in truth in a state of transition. The Secretary-at-War was still so exclusively the secretary to the Commander-in-Chief that he accompanied him on his campaigns; and it is difficult to say with whom, except with the Commander-in-Chief, rested the responsibility for the government of the Army. No ordinary standard should be used in judging of a man who was confronted with so many difficulties as King William the Third. His weak frame, the vast burden of his work in the department of foreign affairs, his failure to understand and his inability to sympathise with the English character, all these causes conspired to make the task of governing England and of commanding her Army too heavy for him. Still, making all possible allowance, and accepting as true Sterne's pictures of his popularity among the soldiers, it is difficult wholly to acquit him of blame for the misconduct of the military administration. His mind in truth was hardly well-suited for administrative detail. He could handle a great diplomatic combination with consummate skill and address, even as he could sketch the broad features of a movement or of a campaign; but he was a statesman rather than an administrator, a strategist rather than a general. In war his impatience guided him to a succession of crushing defeats, in peace his contempt for detail made his period of the command-in-chief one of the worst in our history. That, amid the corruption which he found in England, he should have despaired of finding an honest man is pardonable enough, but he took no pains to cure that corruption, preferring rather to conduct his business through his Dutch favourites than through the English official channels. Finally, his behaviour in the matter of the Irish forfeitures suggests that he was not averse to jobbery himself, nor over-severe towards the same weakness in others; and in truth the Dutch have no good reputation in the matter of corruption. Stern, hard, and cold, he had little feeling for England and Englishmen except as ministers to that hostility for France which was his ruling passion. Probably he felt more kindly towards the English soldier than towards any other Englishman; the iron nature melted at the sight of the shattered battalions at Steenkirk, and, if we are to believe Burnet, the cold heart warmed sufficiently towards the red-coat to prompt him to relieve the starving men, so shamefully neglected by Parliament, out of his own pocket. On the whole, it may be said that no commander was ever so well served by British troops, nor requited that service, whatever his good intent, so unworthily and so ill.